Sunday, January 4, 2009

Bowl Conference Perf

With 31 of the 34 bowls completed, I decided to do a little more analysis of how the conferences have done in the bowl games, to see if my Pac 10 rant was backed up by facts. So, I did an expected (based upon Predictor ranking of Jeff Sagarin) win/loss record and compared it to the actual win/loss record for the conferences:Conf / expected w-l / actual w-lBCSeligible and MWCACC : 8-2; 4-6Big 10: 1-5; 1-5Big 12: 4-1; 3-2Big East: 3-3; 4-2MWC: 2-3; 3-2Pac 10: 4-1; 5-0SEC: 2-5; 5-2Other conferencesConf USA: 1-4; 3-2MAC: 3-1; 0-4Sun Belt: 1-1; 1-1WAC: 1-4; 1-4Instant comments from this:

The Big 12 had just as good a chance at 5-0 as the Pac 10, but upsets by Oregon and Ole Miss did them in.

If there's ever an effective argument against 34 bowl games, the fact that the ACC has 10 teams in bowl games has to rank high on that list.

The MidAmerican Conference has not fared well this bowl season, and this doesn't bode well for Ball State vs Tulsa on Tuesday.

Sagarin completely dissed the SEC, but as usual, they've proven out to be a formidable conference against non-Sun Belt Conference foes. They've gone 5-2 in bowl games even with the most surprising upset of the bowl season going against them.

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What is a LandThief?

Sooners were people that left early in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. Boomers were a group of citizens that had illegally entered Indian Territory earlier in the 80s in an effort to open it up for white settlement. (A special shout out to Rob M for the correction.) For some reason, my blessed alma mater chose the nickname Sooners for the name of the athletic teams. Some of our foes refer to us as LandThieves, since a Sooner is someone who cheated and got to the land before they were supposed to. For some reason, the tagline, "Sooners, cheating since 1889" has never caught on. At least we're not the Oklahoma Thunder or Wind.